"Tried and True/Mountains and Buffalo" Released: 2003
"Transdermal Celebration" Released: 2003
Quebec is the eighth studio album by the American rock band Ween, released on August 5, 2003, on Sanctuary Records. It was the first album released after the band's contract with Elektra expired, and marked its return to independent labels.
Recorded during a period of strife in the band members' personal lives, Quebec was described by Dean Ween as a "very negative" album that takes on a darker tone compared to the band's prior work. Josh Freese performed the drums on the album, stepping in for Claude Coleman Jr. as he was recovering from a near-fatal car crash in 2002. Freese also played with the band on tour during this time, including during a series of benefit concerts for Coleman at New York City's Bowery Ballroom on October 7 and 8, 2002.[1]
The album cover is an edited version of the packaging for the game Thorns from the 3M Paper Games series with the band superimposed on it.[2]
Background
The album was the band's first since 1991's The Pod to be released on an independent label, as Ween's contract with Elektra Records expired following 2000's White Pepper. The three-year gap between albums was the longest for the band up to this point.[3]
The album was originally titled Caesar. It was changed to Quebec because, according to Dean Ween, "Our vision is like this rainy, colder than Paris, Parisian place. The vibe of our record is like romantic and rainy without being as classy as Paris. That was why we called it Quebec, it's like this B-version of Leonard Cohen."[3]
Dean Ween recorded the guitar solo on "Transdermal Celebration" illicitly using Carlos Santana's guitar and amplifier at a storage space where it was to be shipped to New York. After being informed by a roadie, he took a hard disk recorder with him and successfully recorded it in ten minutes without getting caught.[4]
Themes
The recording of Quebec saw the band deal with many struggles in their professional and personal lives. Gene Ween was going through a divorce from his first wife,[5]Dean Ween was dealing with drug issues and was "partying way too hard",[6]Claude Coleman was recovering from a life-threatening car crash that left him unable to perform on the record[7] (with drumming instead being primarily handled by Josh Freese), and the band was moving from Elektra Records to a smaller, independent label.
As a result, many of the songs on the album deal with drug abuse, mental health issues, and failing relationships. Gene Ween has admitted to taking inspiration from his divorce, saying to Pop Matters “I wrote most of these songs right before the end. A lot of these songs are about that. Even if it’s not direct, you can feel the beginning of the end of the breakup in these songs.”. [8] Reflecting on these themes in 2007, Dean said to The A.V. Club, "With Quebec, I like it as a record, but it's very negative. It's one of our darker records, I think. I don't listen to any of our records, but I have never listened to that one."[9]
The album received generally positive reviews from music critics. Mark Prindle named Quebec the best album of the 2000s in an interview on Fox News Channel's Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld.[21]Mojo named it the No. 39 best album of 2003. "CMJ" named it the No. 8 best album of 2003.[22]
"Tried and True" and "Transdermal Celebration" appeared in the second season of Superman & Lois with the former being featured in the sixth episode of the same name.[24]
Indie pop band Water from Your Eyes covered "If You Could Save Yourself (You'd Save Us All)" in 2024 for mental health awareness.[25]
On August 11, 2011, Dean Ween quietly released a two-disc, MP3-only collection of songs, The Caesar Demos, named after the band's original working title for Quebec, to friends on his Facebook page. In his comment, he stated the songs were all recorded between 2001 and 2003 while drummer Claude Coleman, Jr. was recovering from injuries sustained in a car accident, and that many of the tracks featured only himself and Gene. In addition to a handful of recordings that eventually made the album, the demos feature several alternate takes as well as a number of songs that have remained unreleased.[27][28]
well what can i say about this here, lemme see. the first thing that comes to mind is that all the while we were doing this we still had claude coleman on drums, he eventually got into a major car wreck and wasn't around when it finally came time to make the "real" record. instead the drum duties fell on me, josh freese, and sim cain for a couple of tunes. almost all of this was recorded at our beach house in holgate, nj onto 16 track tape. a tiny bit of it was recorded in the garage behind aaron's house in pt. pleasant, pa. some of it was recorded in the spare bedroom of my house in new hope. most of the tunes are just me and aaron, with the two of us playing everything, with me on drums. the songs with claude, dave, and glenn are pretty obvious. on just a few tunes we took what you hear here and cleaned them up and had andrew weiss mix them for the record after some overdubs. dave sings on "it's gonna be a long night", this was days before he had surgery to remove polyps in his throat and his voice was really rough so we figured he was the guy for the job. This isn't even all of the tunes that we ended up choosing from, just the ones i happened to burn to cd before we drove home from the beach every week. hope you dig it for what it is.[29]
A few of the songs on the Caesar Demos would end up on later records by the band. "Someday" and "I Fell In Love Today" would later be featured on the B-sides compilation Shinola, Vol. 1, while a slightly rewritten version of "Don't Let The Moon Catch You Crying" would end up on Dean Ween's second solo album rock2.[30]
Disc 1
No.
Title
Length
1.
"Chocolate Town"
2:49
2.
"Pot Luck"
2:27
3.
"Ooh Vah Lah"
2:49
4.
"So Many People in the Neighborhood"
2:26
5.
"Linda (the Sexy Dancer)"
2:52
6.
"That Man (from the Flatland)"
4:57
7.
"Happy Colored Marbles"
2:39
8.
"Hey There Fancypants"
2:08
9.
"If You Could Save Yourself (You'd Save Us All)"
5:44
10.
"It's Gonna Be a Long Night"
2:46
11.
"Oh My Little Country Cottage"
1:36
12.
"Among His Tribe"
2:46
13.
"Transdermal Celebration"
3:23
14.
"Captain"
4:18
15.
"Tried and True"
4:24
16.
"I Fell in Love Today"
3:40
Total length:
51:44
Disc 2
No.
Title
Length
1.
"I Don't Want It"
3:57
2.
"Ambrosia Parsley"
4:36
3.
"Zoloft"
2:32
4.
"Love Come Down (9-11-01)"
5:42
5.
"Alcan Road"
3:35
6.
"Don't Let the Moon Catch You Cryin'"
3:30
7.
"You Can Go Shit in Your Hat (Matt)"
2:20
8.
"Someday"
3:34
9.
"She Caught My Fancy"
3:01
10.
"Eulogy for David Anderson"
3:08
11.
"Things You Already Know"
3:52
12.
"Hello Johnny"
3:55
13.
"I'm Wide Open"
5:16
Total length:
48:58
Personnel
Ween
Gene Ween – vocals (all tracks except track 1), bass (tracks 2, 9 and 10), keyboard (tracks 2, 5, 7 and 13), acoustic guitar (track 4), synthesizer (track 4), drum machine (track 5), electric guitar (tracks 7, 9, 10, 13 and 14), omnichord (track 2, 8 and 9)
Dean Ween – vocals (track 1), electric guitar (all tracks), bass (tracks 1, 3–8 and 13–15), keyboard (track 2), electric sitar (tracks 3 and 6), vocoder (track 5)
Andrew Weiss – synthesizer (tracks 9 and 15), percussion (track 2), strings (tracks 9 and 15), drums (track 6), keyboard (tracks 2, 3, 6 and 11), fretless bass (track 2)
Glen McClelland – organ (tracks 1 and 15), piano (tracks 14 and 15), accordion (track 15), keyboard (tracks 3, 10 and 14)
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